Motiva Enterprises has begun planning to carry out the overhaul of
the second largest crude distillation unit (CDU) at the 600,250 barrel
per day (bpd) Port Arthur, Texas, refinery in January 2016 instead of
July of this year, sources familiar with the company's plans said.

This is the fourth time the overhaul of the 195,000 bpd CDU, called
VPS-4, and multiple associated units has been rescheduled since it was
originally planned to take place in February 2014. Motiva's Port
Arthur refinery is the country's largest.

Motiva has begun planning the overhaul for January of next year
because that is when enough contract workers are expected to be
available for the overhaul, the sources said. Motiva executives have not
signed off on the January date, but the planning is going forward with
that timeframe.

A Motiva representative was not immediately available to discuss
plans for the Port Arthur refinery. Motiva had looked at moving the
project, which includes VPS-4, the 54,000 bpd coker and the 49,000 bpd
catalytic reformer and at least six other units from July to the late
fall of this year, before targeting January, according to the sources.

The project was rescheduled once in 2014 and then to 2015 when two
separate reviews by Motiva found the refinery was not ready to carry out
a major overhaul, in part due a shortage of contract workers.

Motiva had blocked out from March to late June of this year for the
overhaul on VPS-4 and associated units after completion of a planned
overhaul of the refinery's 92,000 bpd gasoline-producing fluidic
catalytic cracking unit (FCCU), which finished in late March.

The VPS-4 overhaul was pushed back to July because of the strike
from February 21 to March 17 by hourly employees represented by the
United Steelworkers union (USW) at the refinery. The strike had delayed
planning and preparatory work by a month.